Keep an eye on AFRICOM, that's where I see the greatest potential for direct conflict with China. We're militarizing the continent while the Chinese are investing more in infrastructure. Also, I was traveling in Grenada and my guide pointed to their new cricket stadium, also doubles as an arts/entertainment complex. He told me it was a gift from China, they shipped over workers and materials and voila. The U.S. is not so popular in Grenada, given our ugly record there.

It's all about arms sales. There are only a handful of companies that can make hi-tech weaponry, and if you're not USA, China, Russia, UK, France - you need to buy your weapons from somewhere. I'm not talking about rifles and bullets. So countries are either aligned with USA/UK/France when it comes to getting weaponized, or they are with Russia/China. The reason we hate Iran is not because they are ruled by a muslim dictator, it's because they report to Moscow and Beijing, not Washington. Look at a map and you'll see that Iran is right between two countries - Iraq and Afghanistan, what a surprise! Gee, we just happened to be building military bases there for 10 years, what a coincidence...